A Midsummer Night's Dream

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

What do we know about Shakespeare and his works? Why have his plays endured in theater and in academia?

Teaching Suggestion: Students can discuss other Shakespearean works they have studied or seen performed or depicted in film. Brainstorm why these plays have endured, despite having been written over 400 years ago. Discussion might start in small groups before moving to whole class sharing to allow less confident students to share in a less intimidating context.

• “The Uneducated Author Who Made Literary History” - A 5-minute biographical video about Shakespeare’s life and contributions 
• “Why Do We Still Care About Shakespeare?” - An article discussing the enduring nature of Shakespeare’s plays

Short Activity

Understanding the comedic genre will allow you to categorize and better appreciate the comedic strategies Shakespeare employs to entertain his audience. Work with a group to choose and analyze a scene or work of comedy to determine what makes it funny and to analyze its appeal.

Teaching Suggestion: Students should brainstorm in small groups and share with the class their favorite comedies (books, television shows, or movies). Think of specific interactions or scenes; what makes something funny? Have students classify their favorite type of comedy in terms of the article “What is Comedy in Literature? Definition, Examples of Literary Comedy” and identify what elements make them comedic as explained in “Comedy and Tragedy.” 

Next, students can individually take notes on the definitions of high comedy, low comedy, slapstick, and Shakespearean comedy. Ask students to pick a scene that utilizes high comedy, low comedy, or slapstick in their chosen favorite comedies, and in a one page response, demonstrate how the scene can be characterized as such.

• “What Is Comedy in Literature? Definition, Examples of Literary Comedy” - An article summarizing types of comedies and shared characteristics across all comedies
• “Comedy and Tragedy” - A resource that considers the origins of comedy and tragedy and how the two genres relate to one another

Differentiation Suggestion: Students who prefer to work independently along with students learning virtually might contribute via an online forum. Students can individually share a scene from their favorite performed comedy (link to play, film, musical, cartoon), demonstrating with a few paragraphs how the scene’s structure and elements contribute to its classification as comedy.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the characters enter a chaotic reality in the woods, where they are never entirely sure what is real and what is a dream. Have you had an outlandish or strange dream that felt real? Have you ever woken up from a dream feeling disoriented and confused, expecting to still be in the world of the dream? How did this impact your perception of reality? Discuss this experience or a similar experience in which you felt confused and disoriented.

Teaching Suggestion: Students might complete a free-write answering either or both of these questions; answers might then be shared in pairs or small groups to make comparisons and/or draw conclusions about the ways in which dreams or disorientation impact one’s perception of reality.